‘The first half was about as good of football as we’ve played here’: Utah dominates Colorado in QB Byrd Ficklin’s first start

You couldn’t have scripted a better beginning to Byrd Ficklin’s first-ever start.

On the second play of the game between Utah and Colorado Saturday night at Rice-Eccles Stadium, the Utes’ freshman quarterback faked a handoff to NaQuari Rogers and Colorado bit, tackling Rogers.

By the time the Buffaloes realized it was a quarterback keeper, Ficklin was five yards down the field with a head of steam, making a couple of quick cuts and running untouched into the end zone.

It was a 63-yard touchdown run — the longest ever by a Ute freshman starting quarterback — and a dream start for Utah.

Usual starting quarterback Devon Dampier missed his first game of the season on Saturday with an ankle injury, which he reaggravated during the third quarter of last weekend’s game against BYU.

Though he was available to play versus Colorado, Utah elected to give him the game off ahead of a big test against Cincinnati next week.

“Had he felt up to the task in pregame then it would’ve been a tough decision to make, but he was not feeling it,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said of Dampier.

Whittingham said that while Ficklin took the vast majority of the reps this week in practice, it was a game-time decision on whether to start him or Dampier.

Both Ficklin and Dampier warmed up, but as warmups wound down, it was Ficklin taking reps with the first team. Before Ficklin led the team out of the tunnel and onto the field, Dampier had one last message for him.

“He told me he trusted me and he knows everybody on the team was going to be able to trust me,” Ficklin said. “When he told me he had trust in me to lead the team and to play ball, I felt like I was comfortable and I felt like I know I had everybody on my back.”

Since Ficklin arrived on campus in the spring, Whittingham has praised his poise, and that poise was on full display Saturday.

“I was ready. I didn’t have too much emotion. I knew I had to play like I’ve been in that position before,” Ficklin said.

Saturday’s game ended up being the ideal situation for Ficklin to make his first start, as Utah dominated Colorado 53-7 to improve to 6-2 (3-2 Big 12).

Utah’s defensive front manhandled Colorado’s offensive line from the start of the game, and once defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley realized how easily Utah’s front four was getting past the Buffaloes’ offensive line, he started dialing up the pressure.

Colorado quarterback Kaidon Salter couldn’t make Utah pay for sending extra players, and Scalley smelled blood in the water. In the first half, the Utes blitzed early and often, breezing past the Buffaloes’ offensive line and causing havoc.

Salter was sacked five times in the first half alone, and he was spooked on the majority of his snaps. Colorado had nine drives in the first two quarters of play, and its longest drive took 3:12 off the clock.

The Buffaloes didn’t have a first-half drive of more than six plays and never once threatened to score in the first 30 minutes.

Over a commanding two quarters, Utah picked off Salter — it was Tao Johnson’s second interception of the year — and also forced a safety.

With Johnathan Hall and Jackson Bennee bearing down on him in the end zone, Salter threw the ball away, but didn’t avoid the safety — he was flagged for intentional grounding in the end zone, which resulted in two points for the Utes.

Absolutely nothing was working on offense for Colorado. Salter was hounded practically every time he dropped back to pass, and when he tried to run, it didn’t go any better.

Colorado’s offensive line could not get any push for its running backs, and Utah locked down the Buffaloes’ talented receivers.

Colorado rushed for just 38 yards on 38 attempts on Saturday.

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“We were more high pressure today and a lot of run blitzes. There’s two different types of blitzes, run blitzes and pass blitzes, and we had a lot of run blitzes dialed up and run fronts that were heavy box fronts, which puts a lot of stress on the DBs, but they held up all night long,” Whittingham said.

“That was the plan going in though, is if we’re going to get beat, we’re going to get beat with a throw game and not the rush game.”

At halftime it was Utah 43, Colorado 0.

Yardage at the break: Utah 398, Colorado -18.

It was as dominant a defensive half of football as Whittingham has coached.

“It was offense, defense, special teams all hitting on all cylinders,” Whittingham said. “Very few negative things at all. Obviously, jumped on them early. The first half was about as good of football as we’ve played here.”

Utah’s defensive performance eased any pressure for Ficklin in his first start, but after his electric 63-yard touchdown run to open the game, Ficklin faced adversity for the first time in his college career.

The next two drives were up-and-down for the true freshman leading the team in meaningful minutes for the first time. Ficklin looked a bit sped up as Utah went three-and-out on the next drive and then kicked a field goal on the following one (that scoring drive only continued thanks to a well-executed fake punt), but he settled in for the rest of the game.

“Little jittery, not jittery, but not quite in sync during the first quarter, but obviously that second (play of the game) was huge … Seemed like he started to settle in and get into a rhythm in the second quarter,” Whittingham said.

Ficklin’s rushing ability stole the show — he ended the game with 151 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries — and his shiftiness and speed was on full display throughout.

As the game wore on, Ficklin grew more comfortable in the pocket and was able to go through his reads better. His completion percentage wasn’t eye-popping (10 of 22), but he made a few impressive throws.

“I thought he did really well. He didn’t throw as accurately as he will in the future, I can promise you that. He’s a very accurate thrower in practice and has a good strong arm, but he ran the ball efficiently and made enough good throws. We saw him put some right on the money and really moved the offense,” Whittingham said.

Ficklin’s first passing touchdown of the game — a 22-yard strike to tight end JJ Buchanan — featured him going through his reads before delivering a pass on target to an open Buchanan.

Later in the second quarter, Ficklin fired a perfect 20-yard touchdown pass to Larry Simmons to put Utah up 40-0.

On a night when everything was clicking, Ficklin didn’t have to do much through the air as Utah’s ground game did the work. The Utes finished with a whopping 422 rushing yards, led by Ficklin and Wayshawn Parker.

Parker rushed for 145 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries, including a 58-yard score where he turned on the jets, looking the fastest he has in a Utah uniform.

“I’ve been failing Utah. I haven’t touched a hundred yards, so I had to touch a hundred yards this game and I promise that’s not going to be the last game,” Parker said.

Twice this year, Utah has bounced back from a loss with a blowout win. Utah did not let last weekend’s heartbreaking rivalry defeat to BYU bleed into this weekend, thoroughly washing that bitter taste out of its mouth with a dominant win.

The loss in Provo, Utah’s second Big 12 loss of the season, marked a crossroad for this team. Whittingham couldn’t have asked for a better response from his group — they flushed the game, worked hard all week and came out hungry.

The Utes looked like the team off of a bye, not Colorado, and were ready to play from the first snap. Additionally, Dampier got a valuable game off to keep healing his ankle, the Utes got an extended look at the quarterback that could be the future of the program and Utah’s starters got at least a quarter off.

The contrast from last season, when the Utes lost a close one to the Cougars and were trounced 49-24 by Colorado the next week, couldn’t have been more evident.

“It was a great response to our disappointment last week, and that’s twice this year now they’ve responded very well and couldn’t be more proud of them,” Whittingham said.

Utah will likely reenter the Associated Press Top 25 on Sunday, setting up a ranked-vs.-ranked matchup against Cincinnati, which is 7-1 overall and 5-0 in Big 12 play — next Saturday.

After missing a bowl game for just the third time in the Whittingham era last season (excluding the 2020 COVID-19 year), the Utes are now bowl eligible.

This season has already been an improvement from last year. The next four games will tell just how big of an improvement it is.